Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Zero Tolerance #40 - Let me see your warface!

Infused with napalm and awash in horrendous distortion, Electric Funeral scream from the speakers like the blastwave from a thermonuclear explosion. Better known for his other bands (Totalt Jävla Mörker, Warvictims, a dozen others), this is the first time that lifelong D-beat addict Jocke has handled all the instruments alone. The result is a filthy assault of no-frills Scandinavian noisepunk hatred: four tapes, two 7"s and a 12" have been unleashed, with no less than six more vinyl releases forthcoming. "I got tired pestering grown-ups to get them to the rehearsal studio, to play live and tour," sighs the Swede, "so I said, 'Fuck it - do it yourself'. It's very liberating to avoid complying with others' bad taste. I have quite different tastes in music and art, how I look and think about things. The only limit is that I'm not an accomplished musician - I guess it's that feeling my listeners dig".Whilst the raw sonic approach is common to both D-beat and black metal, the one-man-band aesthetic tends to be most commonly associated with the latter."I see many similarities with black metal" enthuses Jocke. "What appeals to me is the raw, primitive and uncompromising attitude; they do their thing and don't care about the rest. I listen a lot to black metal privately, so I get inspired by the genre." Yet with such musical purity, there's always the risk of verging on parody through devotion to form and content - "I hear you!" cackles Jocke. "I often experience the punk scene as a parody of itself - people take themselves so damn seriously. Punk, for me, is about taking control over one's own life, trying to create a better place to live and be inspired. I will never take orders from anyone, and I couldn't care less if people consider me less punk just because I sometimes listen to hip-hop or do puzzles." Hardly a revelation that there's a concerted geekdom here, considering Jocke's record collecting and highly prolific label, D-takt & Råpunk: "D&R rarely press more than 500 copies of our releases. Some titles are sold out in less than two weeks, some take longer. People are more discerning today; they'd love to have 'something more' than just a black vinyl with a xeroxed cover. I've never really understood the digital generation, and that's the main reason why D&R don't have any digital bullshit distribution. My little sister's friends don't even know what vinyl is - how fucked up is that?! I prefer to have as little as possible to do with the internet, and people have difficulty understanding that. I choose vinyl, even noisy tapes, before a crappy mp3 any day. As long as there are geeky record collectors like myself, there'll always be an audience."